Bosch 9781780420936, 1780420935

Table of contents :
Content: Foreword
Biography
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

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Bosch

Page 4: Anonymous, Portrait of Hieronymus Bosch, ca. 1550. Red and black chalk drawing in the Arras Codex, 41 x 28 cm. Bibliothèque Municipale, Arras. Author: Virginia Pitts Rembert

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Foreword “The difference between this painter’s works and those of others: they seek to paint men as they appear on the outside, whereas he endeavours to paint the inner man, as he is on the inside” — Juan de Siguenza

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Biography 1453:

Birth of Hieronymus Van Aken in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (now Bois-le-Duc). His family, of modest origin, most likely originated from Aken (the last name Van Aken literally means “from Aken”), having lived there for more than two generations. There are documents that prove the presence in ‘s-Hertogenbosch of Bosch’s ancestors as early as the end of the 14th century. His father Anthonius Van Aken and his grandfather Jan were painters. We know that Bosch was born into a family of painters and artists, but we know nothing of his training or formal education. We can surmise that he was educated and trained by his family. The nickname Bosch obviously stems from an abbreviation of the painter’s place of origin, ‘s-Hertogenbosch. ‘S-Hertogenbosch is situated in Brabant and is the fourth city of Duchy, established in the 15th century. There was no princely residence in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, as in Brussels, Lille or Louvain, nor were there great noble families comparable to the Nassau of Breda or other patrons from the Netherlands. ‘S-Hertogenbosch lacked the great financial backers apart from those who lived in the city itself who, in spite of their activity, could not rival the other greater cities of Duchy.

1474:

Date of the first mention of Hieronymus in records. It concerned a transaction done with his sister. He is mentioned as a painter for the first time in 1480.

1481:

He marries Aleyt Van den Mervenne, a rich aristocrat. We do not know if the couple ever had children. Aleyt survived her husband and died between 1522 and 1523 at an old age, which we know because she was almost twenty years older than the painter. 5

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1486:

From this date onwards, he is cited as a member of the Brotherhood of

Our Lady. Membership to this brotherhood was already a long family tradition because certain members of the Van Aken family were members as early as the end of the 14th century. The number of brotherhoods in honor of the Virgin increased throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The majority of the cities in the Netherlands soon had their own proper brotherhood. In Bosch’s time, the number of men and women registered at ‘s-Hertogenbosch’s brotherhood had become substantial. The goal of the brotherhood was essentially the devotion of Mary and occasionally the distribution of aid to the poor. This pious institution played an important role in the city, less from a religious than from an artistic and social point of view. In effect, the brotherhood would commission a number of works from local artists and exteriors for the decoration of the chapels. Two painted leaves from the restoration of a work by Van Wessel around 1475-1476 are attributed to Bosch. He did several works for the

Brotherhood of Our Lady. 1493-1494:

He drew up the plans for the stained-glass windows and collaborated in the execution of a panel with the names of the brotherhood’s members.

1504:

Philipp the Beautiful, Sovereign of the Netherlands and King of Castille, commissions The Last Judgement.

1508-1509:

He does the gilt and polychrome decoration of a restoration for the chapel of the Brotherhood of Our Lady. He also does the model of a cross (1511-1512).

1516:

Death of the painter in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. 7

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n 1951, Wilhelm Fränger’s tome, The Millennium of Hieronymus Bosch: Outlines of a New Interpretation, was translated into

English. The book created a sensation, both on the scholarly and the popular levels. An article on the book accompanied by colour illustrations in Life Magazine probably did more than anything else to popularise Bosch, because there had been little or nothing of the sort published on him at the time.

The Man-Tree ca. 1470 Pen and bistre, 27.7 x 21.1 cm Albertina, Vienna

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Fränger’s interpretation that Bosch did his major altarpieces not for orthodox religious purposes, but for use by quasi-religious cults was being promoted as a turning-point in the understanding of this enigmatic artist. While most art historians who have taken up Bosch in the years since Fränger’s death in 1964 have renounced Fränger’s contentions,

The Adoration of the Magi ca. 1470-1475 Oil and gold on wood, 71.1 x 56.5 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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there are still some who continue to endorse his assertion that the grand master of a cult of Adamites dictated its secret imagery to Bosch which he then revealed in his great painting in the Prado Museum, The Garden of Earthly Delights, and in several minor paintings. The writers who commented upon Bosch in the nearly five centuries following

his

death

compounded

such

a

reputation for the man as a “faizeur de diables”

The Adoration of the Magi (detail) ca. 1470-1475 Oil and gold on wood The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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(Gossart), that until the modern period he was hardly considered an artist at all. It was largely his frenzied hell scenes that attracted such attention. When he depicted the creatures and settings of these “hells” in terms of infinitely detailed naturalism, they were so convincing as to seem pure evocation.

The Adoration of the Magi (detail) ca. 1470-1475 Oil and gold on wood The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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To the medieval mind, the man who could reveal so plainly its own worst fears must have been a wizard or a madman, perhaps the tool of the Devil himself. Later writers either reflected this point of view or, following the rationalist aftermath

of

the

Renaissance

and

the

Reformation, passed Bosch off as representing the worst of Medievalism.

The Adoration of the Magi (detail) ca. 1470-1475 Oil and gold on wood The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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When he was mentioned it was not so much as an artist, but as a freak performer. Eventually Bosch was obscured and forgotten. It took at least two centuries until there was a revival of interest in him, in the late 19th century. The 20th century saw more emphasis on this man as an artist than at any time in the past and there is continued, almost overwhelming interest in him in the 21st century. One would expect

Ecce Homo 1475-1480 Tempera and oil on oak, 71 x 61 cm Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main

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Italian writers of the High Renaissance period to point out the painter’s strangeness, since his ideation was so antithetical to that of the South. The Florentine historian Guicciardini, in his Description of all the Low Countries (1567), referred to “Jerome Bosch de Boisleduc, very noble and admirable inventor of fantastic and bizarre things…” In 1568, the Italian historian of artists, Vasari, called Boschian invention “fantastiche e capricciose.”

The Magician 1475-1480 Oil on panel, 53 x 75 cm Musée municipal, Saint-Germain-en-Laye

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Lomazzo, the author of the Treatise on the Art of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, first published in 1584, spoke of “the Flemish Girolamo Bosch, who in representing strange appearances and frightful and horrid dreams, was singular and truly divine.” During the same period in the North, similar statements were made concerning the painter’s work, his demons and hells being mentioned to

Child with a Walking Frame (reverse of Christ Carrying the Cross) ca. 1480 Oil on panel, diameter: 28 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

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the exclusion of all else. The Netherlandish historian, Marc Van Vaernewijck (1567), called Bosch “the maker of devils, since he had no rival in the art of depicting demons.” Carel Van Mander, the Northern counterpart to Vasari, made little more observation of Bosch’s entire works than that they were “...gruesome pictures of spooks and horrid phantoms of hell…”

Christ Carrying the Cross ca. 1480-1490 Oil on wood, 57 cm x 32 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

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Numerous statements in the same vein began to appear in Spanish writing following the influx of so many of Bosch’s paintings into mid-sixteenthcentury Spain. King Philip II, himself, was chiefly responsible for the painter’s popularity in Spain. Philip owned as many as thirty-six of these paintings, amazing considered that Bosch’s entire output is believed to number barely forty.

Death and the Miser ca. 1485-1490 Oil on panel, 93 x 31 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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Such a large collection, accumulated in so few years after the painter’s death, attests to a fascination on the king’s part - a state of mind that prompted some of the first penetrating writing on Boschian work. This was because the monk, Joseph de Siguença,

who

inventoried

the

king’s

paintings shortly after Philip’s death in 1598,

Death and the Miser (detail) ca. 1485-1490 Oil on panel National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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felt compelled to apologise for the king’s obsessive interest in Bosch. Perhaps Fray Joseph feared a destructive attention of the Inquisition, because he wrote an elaborate defense of the painter’s orthodoxy and fidelity to nature: “Among the German and Flemish paintings which are, as I say, numerous, many paintings by Hieronymus Bosch are scattered throughout the house (Escorial); I should like to speak for different reasons a little longer about this painter,

Extracting the Stone of Madness ca. 1490 Oil on panel, 47.5 x 34.5 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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for his great genius deserves it, although in general people call his work absurdities..., people who do not look very attentively at what they contemplate, and I think for that reason that he is wrongly denounced as a heretic - and to begin there - I have of the piety and zeal of the king, our founder, an opinion such (that I think that) if he [Bosch] had been thus, he [the King] would not have admitted his paintings in his house,

Extracting the Stone of Madness (detail) ca. 1490 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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in his convents, in his bedroom, in the Chapter of his orders, in his sacristy, while on the contrary, all these places are adorned with them. Except for this reason, which seems very important to me, there is still another which I deduce from his paintings for one sees almost all the sacraments and ranks and degrees of the Church there, from the pope to the most humble, two points where all heretics falter, and he painted them with his zeal

Crucifixion with a Donor ca. 1490 Oil on panel, 74.7 x 61 cm Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

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and a great observation, which he would not have done as a heretic, and with the mysteries of our Salvation he did the same thing. I should like to show now that his paintings are not at all [absurdities], but like books of great wisdom and art, and if there are any foolish actions, they are ours, not his, and let us say it, it is a painted satire of the sins and inconstancy of men”.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony ca. 1490 Oil on panel, 73 cm x 52.5 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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An interesting counter-reaction to that of the monk is the statement by Francesco Pacheco - the teacher and father-in-law of Velasquez - as written sometime later, in 1649: “There are nough documents speaking of the superior and more difficult things, which are the personages, if one finds time for such pleasures, which were always disdained by the great masters - nevertheless some seek these pleasures: that is the case for

Saint Christopher ca. 1490 Oil on panel, 113 x 72 cm Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

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the ingenious ideas of Hieronymus Bosch with the diversity of forms that he gave to his demons, in the invention of which our King Philip II found so much pleasure, which is proved by the great number of them he accumulated. But Father Siguença praises them excessively, making of these fantasies mysteries that we would not recommend to our painters. And we pass on to more agreeable subjects of painting…”

Ecce Homo ca. 1490 Oil and gold on panel, 52.1 x 54 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

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Pacheco was a Spanish painter and art theorist of the artistic period between Mannerism and Baroque. He had rejected the manneristic delight in mere form and was turning toward an interest in naturalistic illusionism. From either point of view he would have found Bosch’s work unacceptable. Even though Pacheco’s concern was with Bosch as an artist,

Christ Mocked also called The Crowning with Thorns ca. 1490-1500 Oil on oak panel, 73.8 x 59 cm The National Gallery, London

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he passed him off as an oddity, and this reputation clung round the painter for two and a half centuries to come. During this period there was little attention given by scholars to Northern art at all; when it was considered, Bosch was obscured by the great Netherlandish painters ranging from Van Eyck to Brueghel. It was not until the end of the last century that any respectable scholarship was brought to bear upon the painter.

The Pedlar 1490-1505 Oil on panel, 71 x 70.6 cm Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

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Perhaps this was a consequence of the realistic impulse that entered mid-nineteenth-century painting. Historians began to look for precursors to this realism in the past. They turned again to an interest in Northern art and in reemphasising Brueghel, “discovered” Bosch. Such historians as Ebeling and Mosman sorted through the aged registers of his native town ‘s-Hertogenbosch, a Dutch town near the German border, but the result was disappointing.

The Ship of Fools After 1491 Oil on panel, 58 x 33 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris

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The date of Bosch’s death was discovered in a registry of names and armorial bearings - listed as 1516. His birth date was not found, but because his portrait, which was discovered in the Arras Codex, showed a man of about sixty, his birth was assumed to have been around 1450.

Allegory of Intemperance ca. 1495-1500 Oil on panel, 35.9 x 31.4 cm Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven

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There are a few references to Bosch between these dates in the archives of the Brotherhood of Our Lady at ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Several items referred to his having been paid various sums for works commissioned of him. None of this was very informative about essential details of Bosch’s life, save that, since he was referred to once as “illustrious painter”, he was obviously held in repute as an artist by his fellows.

Owl’s Nest Pen and bistre, 14 x 19.6 cm Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

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There is no reason to think, from these references at least, that his friends considered Bosch either a wizard or a madman. As to his ancestry, since Bosch’s name often bore the suffix Van Aken, it was believed that his forebears were from Aachen, just over the Dutch-German border. Five Van Akens were mentioned in the town records before the time of Hieronymus.

Singers in an Egg Oil on panel, 108.5 x 126.5 cm Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille

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One, a teacher named Jan Van Aken, was noted in the archives of ‘s-Hertogenbosch’s Cathedral of Saint John in references covering several years (1423-1434). The historians believed that this was the grandfather of Hieronymus and probably the artist of the fresco of the cathedral - considered to be a prime influence on the grandson.

Triptych of Job ca. 1500 Oil on panel, 98.3 x 132.8 cm Groeninge Museum, Bruges

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In 1464, Laurent Van Aken, possibly the father of Hieronymus, was referred to as a citizen of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. This was the extent of the factual data referring to the artist. The historians were forced to turn back to the evidence of the paintings themselves - but none of them was dated and none was mentioned in contemporary writing. Not until Charles de

Triptych of Job (exterior) ca. 1500 Oil on panel Groeninge Museum, Bruges

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Tolnay’s definitive treatise, written in 1937, was a satisfactory chronology even established, or the works by Bosch’s own hand separated from those of his disciples or copyists. De Tolnay bore directly on the technical evidence of the paintings. He noted that the beginner is betrayed by archaism - stiff figures, long-waisted and with awkward gestures,

Triptych of the Last Judgement Oil on panel, 99.5 x 60.3 cm (central panel) 99.5 x 29 cm (each wing) Groeninge Museum, Bruges

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having no true existence in space nor relationship with one another and the background, and with few and arbitrary folds in their clothing. By observing such characteristics in some Boschian works, he was able to trace a convincing development from the obviously youthful to those of undoubted antithesis in style and conception.

Christ Carrying the Cross After 1500 Oil on panel, 74 x 81 cm Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent

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De Tolnay successfully demonstrated that Bosch developed consistently into a great landscape painter and a superb colorist. Although he never achieved the suavity of an Italian High Renaissance master, in later works he even created a sfumata effect, which unified figures and background into a harmonious entirety. De Tolnay’s work in this direction was so convincing that subsequent writers accepted his classifications as almost incontrovertible.

Ascent of the Blessed to the Heavenly Paradise (left panel of the triptych entitled Visions of the Hereafter) 1500-1504 Oil on panel, 86.5 x 39.5 cm Palazzo Ducale, Venice

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There have been exhaustive attempts to clarify subject matter as well. In de Tolnay’s words: “The oldest writers, Lampsonius and Carel Van Mander, attached themselves to his most evident side, to the subject; their conception of Bosch, inventor of fantastic pieces of devilry and of infernal scenes, which prevails still today [1937] in the large public, prevailed with historians until the last quarter of the 19th century.”

Ascent of the Blessed to the Heavenly Paradise (right panel of the triptych entitled Visions of the Hereafter) 1500-1504 Oil on panel, 86.5 x 39.5 cm Palazzo Ducale, Venice 64

65

Then those historians who saw in the painter a precursor to realism, swung completely in the other direction. They studied his works according to exterior influences such as literature, the artistic tradition of the North, historical events, and the medieval interpretation of the Bible. None of these sources produced any conclusive results on the meaning of Bosch’s cryptic imagery.

Fall of the Damned into Hell (left panel of the triptych entitled Visions of the Hereafter) 1500-1504 Oil on panel, 86.5 x 39.5 cm Palazzo Ducale, Venice 66

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Again in this realm, one of the finest studies was that of de Tolnay. He went far in establishing current influences that would account for much of the Boschian iconography. Most importantly, he introduced a knowledge of Freudian psychology,

revealing

Bosch’s

remarkable

presentiment of this science. Jacques Combe followed de Tolnay’s lead in his treatise, translated from French into English

Fall of the Damned into Hell (right panel of the triptych entitled Visions of the Hereafter) 1500-1504 Oil on panel, 86.5 x 39.5 cm Palazzo Ducale, Venice 68

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in 1946, and continuously acknowledged his indebtedness to the prior monographer, but his study was no mere imitation. He suggested many sources of symbolism overlooked by de Tolnay, such as alchemy and the tarot game. He made a strong case for association between Bosch’s ideology and that of the fourteenthcentury Netherlandish mystic Jan Van Ruysbroek.

The Garden of Earthly Delights ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel, 220 x 389 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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A Ruysbroek follower, Gerard Groote, had spread his master’s teachings by founding the Association of the Brethren of Life in Common, numerous orders of which flourished in the fifteenth-century Netherlands. Since two schools of this order had been established in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in that century,

The Garden of Earthly Delights (left panel: Paradise) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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Combe believed that Bosch might well have been influenced by their teachings. He supported this idea by quoting many passages from Ruysbroek’s writings, which would seem to throw light on certain images in the paintings. With such respectable scholastic attention, Bosch had finally come into his own in the mid-20th century as a significant artist.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of Paradise) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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His works were seen not merely as an influence on Brueghel, but as extremely interesting in themselves.

They

were

a

deviating

but

appropriate link within the “Flemish tradition” in painting, with its curiously combined naturalism and symbolism.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of Paradise) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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The work of de Tolnay, together with the increasing interest in Surrealism, had inspired popular interest in Bosch as a painter of the imaginary. Several articles on Bosch were then published in the most popular American periodicals, as well as in magazines of art. The popular articles presented Bosch as an interesting, almost freakish fantasist of the past and a precursor to Surrealism in his “queerness.”

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of Paradise) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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In a few books written in English as well as translated into English, the more scholarly authors continued to search for the exact sources of Bosch’s symbolism in outside material. Their implication was that Bosch’s symbols, however enigmatic, illustrated images already formed in literature or tradition, and that with enough study these sources would eventually be brought to light and his imagery made comprehensible.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of Paradise) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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With the 1947 German edition and its translation into English of Wilhelm Fränger’s book The Millennium of Hieronymus Bosch, published by the University of Chicago in 1951, Boschian research took a new direction. Fränger, too, felt that the answer to the artist’s mystery lay outside the realm of art - but instead of many sources of his symbolism, he saw only one.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (central panel) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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None of the historians had conceived the idea, he asserted, that Bosch might have been obscuring his imagery with a secret purpose in mind - that of presenting the message of the community he belonged to. If this were true, the answer to the painter’s enigma would lie in one place rather than in many. Fränger, in fact, called all previous studies of Bosch’s work into question.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of the central panel) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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Dissatisfied with their overemphasis on the painter’s demons and hells, he believed that neither the separate hell scenes nor the paintings as a whole had ever been understood in their proper context. Thus, his was a radical departure from all previous interpretations. Wilhelm

Fränger

began

his

study

of

Hieronymus Bosch and his work by deploring the

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of the central panel) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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“vulgar misunderstanding” to which the master had been subjected by having his work passed off as mere mummery. Fränger insisted that with Bosch, symbols “entail a perfect simultaneity of vision and thought” and must be treated as such. The writer considered all other approaches as “fragmentary”, thus presented his study as a total view.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of the central panel) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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In order to understand why the painter would create a mute symbolism, the art historian sorted through the whole body of paintings, separating those of enigmatic content from those that contain little or none. Only if the “freakish riddles” on which Bosch’s reputation was founded occurred in all of the paintings could they be called “the irresponsible phantasmagoria of an ecstatic”. Fränger found that the deviant content existed

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of the central panel) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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only in a clearly defined group of altarpieces the three large triptychs of The Garden of Earthly Delights, the Lisbon Temptation of Saint Anthony, and the Hay-Wain. In contrast, there was only a small amount of this symbolism in such paintings as the Epiphany triptych in the Prado and the Venice Martyrdom of Saint Julia. The remaining paintings, including those of the Passion and Adoration of the Magi themes, had little or none.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of the central panel: Bosch’s “portrait” in the group of figures standing just to he left of the “Grand Master’s Cave”) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid 92

He concluded, therefore, that an arbitrary distinction could be made between two main groups - the generally traditional, obviously created for the church, and the nontraditional, disparate ones. Fränger concentrated on the second group, proposing that they could not have been made for a church congregation since they contained anticlerical polemic, such as would be

The Garden of Earthly Delights (right panel: Hell) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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implied by monks and nuns depicted in disgusting attitudes. Nor could these altarpieces have been made for pagan worship, since they also attacked pagan “priests” and their ritualistic excesses. Altarpieces, however, pointed to some kind of devotional patronage. The polar targets of their attack must have meant a group outside the Church, at once inveighing against ecclesiastical

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of Hell) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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offences and at the same time fighting the abundant mystery cults of the period. The only kind of society that could possibly answer the problem, according to Fränger, would be a militant heretical sect. Setting up an ideal contrary to the teachings of the Church, such a sect would be forced to fight the all-powerful tradition, but on the other hand, would find pagan abominations equally abhorrent.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of Hell) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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If Bosch should paint a devotional altarpiece for a society of this kind, he would mirror their “dual warfare, with all its polar tension” and his “eccentricities” would be explained. According to the scholar, all previous interpretations of Bosch approaching his symbolism without this frame of reference

erred.

Because

Bosch

was

not

intelligible to them, most commentators assumed that he had not intended to communicate - and that the creatures he let loose in these paintings were mere “phantoms of hell.”

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of Hell) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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This thinking placed an emphasis on the hell scenes Bosch might not have intended. True, there are scenes which are set in the most horrific of all hells, but they are always balanced on the other side of the altarpiece by “an impeccable anchorite, or by Mount Ararat, or by the Garden of Eden.”

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of Hell) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

102

In other words, if Bosch gave equal weight to the opposed “ideal scenes,” could we not assume that he intended to emphasise these scenes by their very contrast with Hell? This added further weight to Fränger’s theory of the heretical sect, because Bosch’s more positive scenes would reflect the idealism of such a society.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of Hell) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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Fränger answered his own question as to the specific nature of a cult for which these altarpieces could have been painted by reasoning that it must have been an Adamite cult. For incontrovertible evidence of his theory Fränger offered the record of a trial in the Episcopal court at Cambrai in 1411, which charged the Carmelite friar, Willem Van Hildernissen, with heresy.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of Hell) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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This man was one of the leaders of the Homines Intelligentiae of Brussels, a radical branch of a religious movement active in the territory from the Rhineland to the Netherlands. Fränger inferred from certain statements in the trial record that this was the group for which Bosch produced his altarpieces.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail of Hell) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

108

Its members called themselves Brothers and Sisters of the Free (or High) Spirit in the belief that they were the incarnation of the Holy Ghost and through its power exalted to a state of spirituality that was immune from sin even in the flesh, with its subjection to lusts, so that on earth they lived in a state of paradisiacal innocence.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (exterior panels: The Creation of the World) ca. 1500-1505 Oil on panel, 220 x 97 cm (each wing) Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

110

This is enough of Fränger’s argument to illustrate the nature of his interpretation and his characteristic mode of thought - a thoroughly rational, in fact brilliantly logical analysis, which on its surface was exceedingly convincing. Upon more careful scrutiny, however, it was the scholar’s logic, not Bosch’s, that he revealed.

The Hay-Wain (left panel: Paradise; central panel: Hay-Wain; right panel: Hell) Oil on panel, 140 x 200 cm Monasterio de El Escorial, San Lorenzo de El Escorial

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What Fränger did consistently here, was to follow a system of reasoning that set up a hypothesis as an arbitrary starting point and then, through misleading inferences, arrived at subsequent hypotheses and developed the conclusions implicit in them, ad infinitum. A thought construction was created, no part of which could be removed without damage to the whole, nor explained without reference to the

Saint John on Patmos 1504-1505 Oil on oak panel, 63 x 43.3 cm Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

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whole. But the entire structure rested upon the original hypothesis, a very shaky foundation indeed. This was Fränger’s hypothesis: that the paintings containing the major part of Bosch’s enigmatic symbolism, being in the form of altarpieces, must have been made for a devotional purpose.

Saint John on Patmos (detail) 1504-1505 Oil on oak panel Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

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They contain anticlerical and anti-pagan invective that could have been made neither for the Church nor for a pagan group. Since it was not the practice of a late medieval artist to paint merely for his own satisfaction, nor is it conceivable that private commissioners would have wanted such odd altarpieces for their own chapels, there must thus have been a group outside the Church, operating between its severe discipline and pagan anarchy, but fighting both.

Saint John on Patmos (exterior) 1504-1505 Oil on oak panel Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

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These paintings must have been made for a heretical sect, therefore, which was forced to hide its deas in secret symbols, whose explanations would clarify Bosch’s enigmatic figures. To Fränger, this meant no doubt the Adamite cult. Are the points of the hypothesis defensible? The traditional altarpiece form strongly implied a devotional purpose to the historian - herefore,

Saint John on Patmos (detail of exterior) 1504-1505 Oil on oak panel Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

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he had to seek the type of group which would use Bosch’s altarpieces for such a purpose. It is not absolutely necessary, however, to think of these paintings as having a devotional purpose. This was not a time of strict adherence to tradition. Northern Europe was at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the 16th century in a period of great transition.

Saint John on Patmos (detail of exterior) 1504-1505 Oil on oak panel Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

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Already, the influence of the Renaissance from the South had been felt, entailing a discard of many old forms and ways. There was a growing secularisation, resulting in a patronage for artists widened far beyond the extent of the Church. It is conceivable that the altarpiece form could have been used for a non-devotional painting commissioned by a private patron - merely because it allowed for intriguing complexity.

Table of the Mortal Sins Late 15th century Oil on panel, 120 x 150 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

124

The artist’s popular appeal is shown by the fact that his manner and subject treatments were adopted so quickly by artists such as Huys and Brueghel. It may be that Bosch painted for a delighted audience, only too happy to keep him in commissions.

Table of the Mortal Sins (detail: Anger) Late 15th century Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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We know from records quoted above that he was held in great repute by his fellow townsmen. We know, too, that both the Emperor Charles V and one of his courtiers, Felipe de Guevara, had acquired several of Bosch’s paintings within a remarkably short time after the painter’s death.

Table of the Mortal Sins (detail: Envy) Late 15th century Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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The fact that Charles’ son Philip confiscated one altarpiece from a rebellious Netherlandish Burgher makes it seem more likely that some paintings were owned privately rather than being part of the sacred equipment of churches; but it suggests as even less likely that the paintings were the hidden and guarded property of heretical sects.

Table of the Mortal Sins (detail) Late 15th century Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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If such were the case, it is improbable that the paintings would have been in free circulation at such an early time after the artist’s death. Fränger’s system of reasoning is so tightly constructed, with so little possibility of error that he seems to assume that his audience would inevitably reach the same conclusions.

The Last Judgement ca. 1504-1508 Oil on panel 163 x 127.5 cm (central panel) Die Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna 132

133

One example will suffice to show to what fantastic excesses such thinking can and does lead in his interpretation. Fränger had previously demonstrated in his analysis of the central panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights that this fabulous display of erotic activity was in celebration of an actual marriage event.

The Last Judgement (exterior) ca. 1504-1508 Oil on panel 163 x 127.5 cm Die Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna 134

Therefore, he assumed that this also became the occasion for a pictorial revelation of the “society’s” mysteries - including all of the levels of knowledge a member could attain by instruction and by which he could finally reach full initiation into the group.

Triptych of the Hermits ca. 1505 Oil on panel, 86.5 x 120 cm Palazzo Ducale, Venice

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Since it is such a “unique pictorial creation, in which the whole universe has been assembled to sing praises such as no king and queen ever heard on their wedding-day,” it must be a truly “god-like couple,” which is being married, Fränger proclaimed and went on to find them in the lower right corner of the panel, half-hidden in a cave. The man is the only clothed figure among

Triptych of the Hermits (left panel) ca. 1505 Oil on panel Palazzo Ducale, Venice

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the abounding nude ones, he said, and proposed further differentiations as well. A man who exalts himself by such self-awareness as this one, and who is further being exalted by such a wedding celebration, could be one of only two people to Fränger - either the painter Bosch or the man who inspired the triptych.

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony 1505-1506 Oil on panel, 131.5 x 119 cm (central panel) 131.5 x 53 cm (each wing) Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

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Since this is not a portrait of Bosch, it must according to the writer be the face of the “man who commissioned such an extraordinary work of art and inspired its intellectual conception, [and] we can go even further and make the conjecture that this portrayal of the bridegroom is also that of the Grand Master of the Free Spirit, who meets us with a piercing, scrutinising gaze on the threshold of his paradisiacal world.”

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (left exterior panel: The Arrest of Christ) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

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Having so thoroughly convinced himself of his assertions, Fränger introduced the elusive “Grand Master” into “early Dutch social and art history [as] a powerful spiritual personality, hitherto completely unknown, one who is worthy to rank with those three great men of the same country and the same century, Erasmus Desiderius of Rotterdam, Johannes Secundus and Johannes Baptist Van Helmont.”

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (right exterior panel: Christ carrying his Cross) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

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145

Thus, Fränger not only endowed his invention with physical aspect, personality, bride, and philosophy, but he bestowed on him greatness. In the process, he destroyed Bosch not only as a personality, but also as an artist. It was not long before the Grand Master ceased to be elusive, because Fränger claimed, in his article on Bosch’s Saint John of Patmos, published in 1949-1950,

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (central panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

146

to have discovered the man’s identity. He had learned that a Jewish resident of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, named Jacob Van Almaengien, was baptised ceremoniously in the presence of Philip the Fair of Brabant. Nothing but circumstantial evidence in the official records connected this man with the artist, but he was listed as having been registered as a member of the Brotherhood of Our Lady for the year 1496-1497,

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (detail of central panel: Saint Anthony, Christ, and the participants in the Sacramental Oil) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon 148

149

under the Christian name Philip Van Sint Jan. Of course, Bosch had been a member of the order since 1486. This was not proof enough to convince many Boschian historians, especially the Dutch ones, such as Dirk Bax, yet the evidence was so compellingly argued by Fränger that to Patrik Reuterswärd and others it seemed highly suggestive.

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (detail of central panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

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151

Fränger is good reading, everyone agrees, but most historians do not agree that his creation is more than a fabrication of his own imagination. Many very reputable historians tackled the enigma of Hieronymus Bosch both before and after Fränger died in 1964. Writing still in the late 1950s, soon after Fränger discharged his first salvo, several historians began to stress the more serious, possibly even conventional appeal of

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (detail of central panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

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Bosch’s paintings: Max Friedländer sounded the general view that the artist’s contemporaries “considered them as sermons with a moral.” Charles Cuttler averred that “Bosch’s unnatural yet natural beings, pieced together with artistic rather than natural logic, were a perfect vehicle for his serious, moralising exaltation of basic Christian ideals…”

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (detail of central panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

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In 1959, Ludwig von Baldass identified several of the artist’s patrons as being eminently respectable: Philip the Fair of Brabant and his sister the Archduchess Margaret, William of Orange and the Archduke Ernest, as well as more common (but undoubtedly affluent) citizens of Amsterdam, Haarlem, and Antwerp - including Rubens in the 17th century.

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (right panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

156

157

Baldass also mentioned Bosch’s influences among his great Flemish forebears (assuming that he did not know those from Ghent - mainly Eyck or Goes) as Weyden, Bouts, Geertgen, and Memling, as well as several “International Style” artists (through a vignette from Italy, perhaps?).

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (detail of right panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

158

He thought the artist was the first in Flanders and Holland to understand the importance of drawing for planning and clarifying details. In addition, Baldass saw Bosch as a consummate inventor, never drawing only what he saw or taking from other artists. Among the striking recent studies have been those of Laurinda Dixon.

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (detail of right panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

160

She built upon the alchemical interpretation of Bosch’s work, but sought a middle ground between what she considered their too disparate approaches. She found this in the more mundane field of pharmacy. Not only had there been a pharmacist in Bosch’s wife’s family, but Dixon believed that the artist’s middle-class background would have drawn him more to the practical craft

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (detail of right panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

162

of pharmacy, which was associated with both alchemy and medicine, but was much less esoteric than those. Bernard Vermet added new information to the dating of the artist’s paintings, primarily from the standpoint of “dendrochronological” testing (of growth rings of the wooden panels on which they were painted) done by contemporary scientists.

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (left panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

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165

Among the controversial findings that he and Koldeweij contributed, or reported, was that The Marriage at Cana was produced at least a halfcentury after the artist’s death. As an example of a talented follower, Vermet related that the Spaniard Felipe de Guevara wrote around 1560 of a highly accomplished pupil of Bosch’s,

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (detail of left panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

166

who could outdo his master in imitating him and signing works in his name, and that frequent retouching of Bosch’s paintings after his death made technical comparisons very problematic. This historian made a thorough survey of the remainder of Bosch’s paintings, detailing the new proposals on the dating or authenticity of the

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (detail of left panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

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artist’s work. Paul Vandenbroeck showed how Bosch used Christ and angels to balance the negative in his work. Christ might seem to despair when he displays his wounds to the sinful mass below, but by so doing, “he draws attention to his suffering, through which he will save the humanity that has forgotten its God”. The author concluded that Bosch was deeply imbedded in the urban,

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (detail of left panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

170

bourgeois culture that surrounded him, but became wealthy enough by his work to separate himself from the “artistic norms of his time”. The artist had summed up his independence by appending a Latin quotation (possibly from Boethius) to one of his drawings:“It is characteristic of the most dismal of minds always to use clichés and never their own inventions.”

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (detail of left panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

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Before reestablishing Bosch’s position as an artist by discussing his “mode of visual thought” as the process by which he created his marvelous imagery, we shall consider the conditioning influences that must have directed his use of an unusual formula. This is because no artist, not even a unique one, develops autonomously.

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (detail of left panel) 1505-1506 Oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

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The growth of an artist like Bosch is the result of a combination of unusual circumstances influential in his background. Hieronymus Bosch was certainly not closely allied to any school or group of artists. As a result, he did not follow the artist’s usual pattern of seeking to advance

The Last Judgement (fragment) 1506-1508 Oil on panel, 60 x 114 cm Alte Pinakothek, Munich

176

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technical knowledge for its own sake, even within the framework of religious subject matter. Although he developed into a first-rate technician, it is nevertheless

apparent

that

his

technical

chievements evolved from the demands of religious necessity. He was, undoubtedly, intensely religious.

The Adoration of the Magi ca. 1510 Oil on panel, 138 x 138 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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His paintings exude belief of an extraordinary nature. The fact that his governing drive was the desire to heighten religious experience would be a prime factor in his freedom from the ordinary artistic restrictions. His lack of preoccupation with reality has made him incomprehensible to the layman and historian alike, but this would naturally follow from his desire to concretise such imaginary concepts as Heaven, or Hell, or the visions of a saint.

The Adoration of the Magi (detail of central panel) ca. 1510 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

180

His technical facility with such difficult passages as the cloud-formed tunnel to Heaven, or the fire-lit night sky of Hell would be the result of his wish to intensify the revelatory impact of these concepts. There were many other factors at work in the formation of Bosch’s artistic modus. De Tolnay made the point that the artist’s very originality in

The Adoration of the Magi (detail of central panel) ca. 1510 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

182

technique and ideation may have resulted from his physical isolation from the main artistic currents of his time. There is no record of his ever having traveled outside his hometown. If he had never seen the paintings of the great Flemish masters, his most immediate influences would be those found in a provincial town. The content of his paintings seems much closer to popular sources, such as illumination and incunabula, than to that of the Flemings.

The Adoration of the Magi (detail of central panel) ca. 1510 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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Although he worked in oil paint as they did, he did not employ their elaborate glazing method and, perhaps, had no knowledge of it. His was an alla prima technique, which some people believe to be his application to oils of a fresco painting manner, conceivably resulting from his admiration for the frescoes in the cathedral of ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

The Adoration of the Magi (detail of central panel) ca. 1510 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

186

Their “International Style” figure treatment may explain the archaism of the figures in his early paintings. An artist is never completely isolated from larger artistic heritages, however. Ideas are “in the air” and are bound to have their penetrative effect. He had a certain identity with Dutch art of his period. According to historian Otto Benesch: “Dutch art of the late 15th century,

The Adoration of the Magi (detail of left panel) ca. 1510 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

188

in spite of its tremendous height of pictorial mastership, had as its chief aim not perfection of craftsmanship and naturalistic observation of the Flemings, but expression. The same subjective religious spirit which brought about the mystical movements of the Brothers of the Common Life [the Ruysbroek followers] ... fills the works of the Dutch painters, whether they go in a realistic direction,

The Adoration of the Magi (exterior: The Mass of Saint Gregory) ca. 1510 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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like Geertgen tot Sint Jans, or in a fantastic and visionary one, like Bosch.” Benesch called this direction “Dutch Flamboyant Gothic,” but it was part of a movement of wider dispersion than this name would indicate. De Tolnay pointed out that there was a Neo-Gothic current spreading throughout Europe during the last quarter of the 15th century, appearing “simultaneously at Florence with Botticelli and Filippino Lippi,

The Adoration of the Magi (detail of exterior: The Mass of Saint Gregory) ca. 1510 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

192

at Venice with Crivelli and Vivarini, in Germany with Schongauer, in Flanders itself with Juste de Gand.” Bosch’s involvement with Gothic art may have been more personal, however, than as a result of a generalised trend. The Cathedral of Saint John in ‘s-Hertogenbosch is called one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture in the

The Hay Wagon 1515 Oil on panel, 147 x 212 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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Netherlands. It is known, as shown in records cited earlier, of Bosch’s close association with the cathedral by virtue of his artistic contributions to its decoration. The cathedral had burned in the early part of the century and the repairs were still in progress in the painter’s youth. He probably grew up watching the wood and stone carvers at work in the churchyard.

The Hay Wagon (left panel: Paradise) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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The most obvious result of such an observation was his love of the chimeras and grotesqueries that enjoy self-sufficient life in his works. A more important contribution of Gothic art to Bosch, however, lay in its mode of expression. Since the laws of Gothic art are determined by its own dynamics - not by the necessity of an adherence

The Hay Wagon (left panel: God, Adam and Eve in Paradise) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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to nature’s laws, its influence allowed the artist his initial freedom from nature. Some historians have believed that Bosch was not at all influenced by the great achievements of the 15th century, but was a complete reversion to Gothic, or International Style, or pre-Eyckien “archaism.” It was not possible for Bosch to have remained untouched by the artistic achievements of his own century. He was a master of illusionistic spatial

The Hay Wagon (left panel: Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

200

recession, often applied more vertically than horizontally, but not achieved to such a degree in any previous century. He could indicate ephemeral effects, such as a smoke filled sky, with startling effectiveness. Though not a naturalist in the sense of insisting on surface detail, a prime delight of the Flemings, he could differentiate textural substances.

The Hay Wagon (left panel: Original Sin) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

202

It has been emphasised that, from his Gothic influence, he would have felt it unnecessary to render the world’s logical aspect and could so deal freely in imaginative realms. It was just the skill that he possessed of rendering some natural effects, and which he used in the service of his imagination, that produced his peculiar identity.

The Hay Wagon (left panel: View of the God figure) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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To be more inclusive, it was the combination of his knowledge of fifteenth-century achievements, Gothic ideation, his sectional and local provincial background, and his personal qualities of religiosity and imagination - all of which would contribute to the formation of this completely unique artistic personality.

The Hay Wagon (central panel) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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207

The irrational element in Bosch’s paintings, one of the results of his distinctive motivations, is not a unique phenomenon in art. If the whole sweep of art history is considered, there have been many artists violating logic in their subject treatment, but until the past century they have not existed in sufficient number at any one time to form a school.

The Hay Wagon (detail of central panel) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

208

The manner in which they worked is consistent with a true understanding of the artistic process. We wonder that there have been so few of these artists, but when one realises the fate of Bosch in general opinion, the reason is apparent. The fact is that few people are objective enough to separate the image from reality. This inability causes the lay observer to expect the image to retain the aspect of its counterpart in life and to assume, if it does not, that this disparity reflects an unbalanced mind.

The Hay Wagon (detail of central panel) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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It would be presumptuous to claim to understand the mind of Hieronymus Bosch, and therefore, the exact nature of his “mode of visual thought.” It would be impossible to tell whether he worked according to rational or irrational directives. His imagery is so involved that many processes may have been operative in its formation.

The Hay Wagon (detail of central panel) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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In part, Bosch was undoubtedly illustrating in a rational manner ideas received from theology and folklore. His

hybridisation

was

a

flamboyant

elaboration of the same device used so often by medieval artists. The strange effects he achieved would be partially explainable by his reasonable desire to present the obverse satanic world, by “queering” the normal one.

The Hay Wagon (detail of central panel) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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215

He would make his creatures, their activities, and their environments as weird and unworldly as possible, yet, the painter would make these things believable by rendering them with all of the technical mastery an artist would ordinarily use to produce the illusion of the natural world. That Bosch was also acting according to subconscious directives within the framework of his rational intentions cannot be doubted. His paintings are compelling in their power on the viewer.

The Hay Wagon (right panel: Hell) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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Of course, it may be that this fascination on the viewer’s part is the result of the stimulation of his or her subconscious mind by Bosch’s imagery. The explanations that the viewer attempts to read into the imagery may not have existed in Bosch’s mind at all. But psychologists believe that the subconscious mind is much alike in every person; so, what Bosch produced by allowing his subconscious

The Hay Wagon (detail of Hell) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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mind its play might evoke a deep response by recognition of something with which the viewer also held subconscious familiarity. Hieronymus Bosch’s difference was that he did not confine himself to the traditional reference. He used the method by which the common symbols had been made - evolving as they did from

The Hay Wagon (exterior) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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221

countless origins, formed by free association of ideas in many minds, accepted into common usage if they had universal impact. The painter simply made his own associations, but the images which he created are not to be looked upon as having objective meaning that can be disassociated from the visual creation.

The Hay Wagon (detail of exterior) 1515 Oil on panel Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

222

Whatever the means employed by the artist to achieve effects and whether they were fully intentional or not, it is certain that he did intend to convey the impression of evil. In fact, it should always be kept in mind that this was the painter’s central motive. The desire to record the pervasiveness of evil in the world and in its many guises was such an

Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness Oil on panel, 49 x 40.5 cm Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid

224

extraordinarily religious motivation with Bosch that it gives direction when there seems to be none. It offers control when control seems forgotten. It was with full awareness of this purpose that Bosch created an orderly arrangement in which the agents of evil swarm in profusion and confusion. Holding the control of awareness over the whole the artist relaxed it in the parts.

Marriage Feast at Cana Oil on panel, 93 x 72 cm Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

226

It is only when an attempt is made to analyse the parts, that the basic order is forgotten and chaos seems to reign. The baffled viewer then decides that Bosch was either a mad projectionist of his uncontrolled hallucinations or else that he hid his rational meaning in a labyrinth of symbolism to which someday, someone will find the map.

Triptych of the Crucifixion of Saint Julia Oil on panel, 104 x 119 cm Palazzo Ducale, Venice

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There can be no rational interpretation of these paintings. Nor does this mean that Hieronymus Bosch was mad. With a fully rational mind this artist set his stage; then, (to adopt an anachronistic figure of speech) he placed his mind in neutral and allowed it to be propelled by his imagination.

Triptych of the Passion ca. 1515-1520 Oil on panel, left panel: 150.5 x 82.2 cm; central panel: 139.5 x 169.8 cm; right panel: 150.1 x 82.5 cm Museo de Bellas Artes, Valencia

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231

In

other

words,

he

surrendered

his

consciousness to his unconscious mind. Whatever restraints there are that work the mind in related, reasonable, patterns were dropped. The images of the human mind that come and go and not searched out or kept in order from which no ideas are abstracted among which no selection is practiced were allowed a concatenation of their own making.

Christ Carrying the Cross Oil on panel, 150 x 94 cm Palacio Real, Madrid

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From knowledge implanted at earlier times at many times, these images were churned up from obscure levels in the artist’s mind. Similarly, the images formed in many systems made to explain evil came to the artist’s mind in an incredible number of combinations, thus accounting for the variety of usages over the panels.

Christ Carrying the Cross (detail) Oil on panel Palacio Real, Madrid

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In musical terms, the result would be as the “music” played by the wind on an aeolian harp. It can be argued that such noise is chaotic, but the strings are tuned in unison. In the same way, the artist’s mind was tuned to his subject. He knew for what (the service of the Lord) and against what (the machinations of the Devil) he allowed his mind to play. There is, indeed, obscurity in the utterances of this man,

The Seven Deadly Sins in a Peel of Terrestrial Globe Oil on panel, 86 x 56 cm Private Collection, Geneva

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237

and it would not be argued here that the obscure is necessarily profound. Nor would it be implied that the mind surrendered is as capable of the great statement as the mind controlled.It would be said that the power of the imagination is unlimited; not only capable of a reproductive function, forming images of things once seen but now absent, it is also capable of an inventive or creative function, forming images of things never seen - actually non-existent.

Beggars and Cripples Pen and bistre, 26.4 x 19.8 cm Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Brussels

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239

Fashion and the exigencies of the times decree to what extent the artist operates according to control and rule. In the case of the artist confined to the reproduction of things seen, immediate contact is made between the artist’s mind and that of the viewer. There is satisfaction for both for the painter because he or she will be understood for the viewer who understands. The contact which the inventive artist establishes is more nebulous.

Studies of Monsters Pen and bistre, 31.8 x 21 cm Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

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241

The path from mind to mind is not a closed, but an open circuit. This artist not only reveals to the viewer the processes of the artist’s mind, but generates these processes in the viewer’s mind. To repeat the words of A. C. Bradley: “…the specific way of the [inventive] imagination is not to clothe consciously held ideas in imagery; it is to produce half-consciously a matter from which,

Animal Studies Pen drawing, 8.6 x 18.2 cm Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

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243

when produced, the [viewer] may, if he chooses, extract ideas.” With an incredible energy, Bosch produced the matter; he sparked wonder in the viewer’s mind. It is left to the viewer, not to explain what is in the painter’s mind, but to examine the wonder engendered in his or her own mind and in doing so, be infinitely intrigued.

Man without Body and one Monster Ink drawing, 8.6 x 18.2 cm Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

244

245

Roger Marijnissen invited the reader of his book on Bosch to enjoy the paintings, always keeping in mind that the artist was a “born painter.” Bosch dwells on the fears of his time, many of which are of our time, but let us - while appreciating the message, celebrate the artist and not waste so much time and attention on the “riddle” of his work.

Two Witches Pen and bistre, 12.5 x 8.5 cm Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

246

247

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A The Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1470-1475) detail The Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1510) detail of central panel

11 13, 15, 17 179 181, 183, 185, 187

detail of exterior: The Mass of Saint Gregory

193

detail of left panel

189

exterior: The Mass of Saint Gregory

191

Allegory of Intemperance Animal Studies

49 243

Ascent of the Blessed to the Heavenly Paradise

248

left panel of the triptych entitled Visions of the Hereafter

63

right panel of the triptych entitled Visions of the Hereafter

65

B Beggars and Cripples

239

C Christ Carrying the Cross detail

233 235

Christ Carrying the Cross (ca. 1480-1490)

25

Christ Carrying the Cross (after 1500)

61

Christ Mocked also called The Crowning with Thorns

43

Crucifixion with a Donor

35

Child with a Walking Frame (reverse of Christ Carrying the Cross)

23

D Death and the Miser Death and the Miser detail

27 29

249

E Ecce Homo (1475-1480)

19

Ecce Homo (ca. 1490)

41

Extracting the Stone of Madness

31 33

detail

F Fall of the Damned into Hell left panel of the triptych entitled Visions of the Hereafter

67

right panel of the triptych entitled Visions of the Hereafter

69

G The Garden of Earthly Delights central panel

83

detail of Hell

97, 99, 101, 103, 105, 107, 109

detail of Paradise

250

71

75, 77, 79, 81

detail of the central panel

85, 87, 89, 91

detail of the central panel: Bosch’s “portrait” in the group of figures standing just to he left of the “Grand Master’s Cave” exterior panels: The Creation of the World

93 111

left panel: Paradise

73

right panel: Hell

95

H The Hay Wagon central panel detail of central panel

195 207 209, 211, 213, 215

detail of exterior

223

detail of Hell

219

exterior

221

left panel: Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise

201

251

left panel: God, Adam and Eve in Paradise

199

left panel: Original Sin

203

left panel: Paradise

197

left panel: View of the God figure

205

right panel: Hell

217

The Hay-Wain (left panel: Paradise; central panel: Hay-Wain; right panel: Hell)

113

L The Last Judgement exterior The Last Judgement (fragment)

133 135 177

M The Magician

21

The Man-Tree

9

Man without Body and one Monster

245

Marriage Feast at Cana

227

252

O/P Owl’s Nest

51

The Pedlar

45

Portrait of Hieronymus Bosch, anonymous

4

S Saint Christopher Saint John on Patmos detail detail of exterior exterior

39 115 117 121, 123 119

Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness

225

The Seven Deadly Sins in a Peel of Terrestrial Globe

237

Singers in an Egg Studies of Monsters The Ship of Fools

53 241 47

253

T Table of the Mortal Sins

125

detail

131

detail: Anger

127

detail: Envy

129

The Temptation of Saint Anthony

37

Triptych of Job

55

exterior

57

Triptych of the Crucifixion of Saint Julia

229

Triptych of the Hermits

137

left panel Triptych of the Last Judgement

139 59

Triptych of the Passion

231

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony

141

central panel detail of central panel

254

147 51, 153, 155

detail of central panel: Saint Anthony, Christ, and the participants in the Sacramental Oil detail of left panel detail of right panel

149 167, 169, 171, 173, 175 159, 161, 163

left exterior panel: The Arrest of Christ

143

left panel

165

right exterior panel: Christ carrying his Cross

145

right panel

157

Two Witches

247

255